Quotes about sex

A collection of quotes on the topic of sex, likeness, women, doing.

Best quotes about sex

Woody Allen photo

“I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Woody Allen photo

“Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Gabriel García Márquez photo

“Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love.”

Variant: Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.
Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Woody Allen photo

“Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)

Marilyn Monroe photo

“Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.

Marilyn Monroe photo

“A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Comment on her sex symbol status, quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 40
Context: That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather it be sex than some of the things we've got symbols of... I just hate to be a thing.

George Burns photo

“Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer
Linus Torvalds photo

“Software is like sex; it's better when it's free.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Attributed to Torvalds at 1996 FSF conference, video showing this phrase in one of Torvalds papers (time code: 48.44) https://web.archive.org/web/20071016215132/http://www.argentilinux.com.ar/doku.php/linux_videos_documentales:the_code_linux
Attributed

David Bowie photo

“I'm a born librarian with a sex drive”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger
Samael Aun Weor photo

Quotes about sex

Ville Valo photo
Jim Carrey photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored?”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in "Atatürk" in Images of a Divided World (29 October 2006) http://jmilton6000.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/ataturk/
Variant translation: Humankind consists of two sexes, woman and man. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?
Context: Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible for humankind to grow by the improvement of only one part while the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains that the other half can soar into skies?

“I have lived such an unnatural life, devoid of love, sex, and pleasure.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Perspective on incelness

James Baldwin photo

“Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" in Esquire (May 1961)

Virginia Woolf photo

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/virginia-woolf/ traces the origin of such statements to The Intimate Notebooks of George Jean Nathan (1932), where the diarist states:
We were sitting one morning two Summers ago, Ferenc Molnár, Dr. Rudolf Kommer and I, in the little garden of a coffee-house in the Austrian Tyrol. “Your writing?” we asked him. “How do you regard it?” Languidly he readjusted the inevitable monocle to his eye. “Like a whore,” he blandly ventured. “First, I did it for my own pleasure. Then I did it for the pleasure of my friends. And now — I do it for money.”
Misattributed

Ben Shapiro photo

“You can’t magically change your. You can’t magically change your sex. You can’t magically change your age.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, '.

Sharon Tate photo
Rajneesh photo

“Whenever I meet prostitutes, they never speak of sex. They inquire about the soul, and about God. I also meet many ascetics and monks, and whenever we are alone they ask about nothing but sex.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

From Sex to Superconsciousness
Context: Whenever I meet prostitutes, they never speak of sex. They inquire about the soul, and about God. I also meet many ascetics and monks, and whenever we are alone they ask about nothing but sex. I was surprised to learn that ascetics, who are always preaching against sex, seem to be captivated by it. They are curious about it and disturbed by it; they have this mental complex about it, yet they sermonize about religion and about the animal instincts in man. And sex is so natural.

Scarlett Johansson photo

“Well you know, I don’t think I have never really seen a film of this genre, where the female characters' sex appeal sort of came second. I mean of course they’re sexy characters.”

Scarlett Johansson (1984) American actress, model, and singer

Of her role as Black Widow in Iron Man 2, in Teen Hollywood (3 May 2010) http://www.teenhollywood.com/2010/05/03/interview-gwyneth-and-scarlett-iron-mans-ladies
Context: Well you know, I don’t think I have never really seen a film of this genre, where the female characters' sex appeal sort of came second. I mean of course they’re sexy characters. When you have a sexy secretary, or a girl swinging around by her ankles in a cat suit, you know that’s innately sexy, but the fact is that these characters are intelligent. They’re ambitious. They’re motivated and calculated to some degree.

Keanu Reeves photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Andrea Dworkin photo

“Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.”

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7
Context: But the hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right. Intercourse appears to be the expression of that contempt in pure form, in the form of a sexed hierarchy; it requires no passion or heart because it is power without invention articulating the arrogance of those who do the fucking. Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women; but that contempt can turn gothic and express itself in many sexual and sadistic practices that eschew intercourse per se. Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.

Margaret Atwood photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Ava Gardner photo

“Sex isn't all that important, but it is when you love someone very much.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Source: Ava: My Story

“There are four basic human needs: food, sleep, sex and revenge.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Existencilism (2002)

Thom Yorke photo
Billy Connolly photo
Juan Donoso Cortés photo

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Slavoj Žižek photo

“Love is what makes sex more than masturbation. If there is no love even if you are really with a partner you masturbate with a partner.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

Interview in HARDtalk, BBC World Service (12 January 2010)

Justin Bieber photo

“I don't think you should have sex with anyone unless you love them… I think you should just wait for the person you're…in love with.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Rolling Stone "Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Politics, Music and Puberty In New 'Rolling Stone' Cover Story" http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-politics-music-and-puberty-in-new-rolling-stone-cover-story-20110216, February 2011

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Judith Butler photo
G. E. M. Anscombe photo
Ben Kowalewicz photo
David Hilbert photo

“I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as a Privatdozent. After all, the Senate is not a bath-house.”

David Hilbert (1862–1943) German prominent mathematician

Hilbert-Courant (1984) by Constance Reid, p. 143

Andy Warhol photo
John Donne photo
Snoop Dogg photo

“Sex is like a beautiful meeting of genitalia. It's the dance of love between a penis and vagina.”

Snoop Dogg (1971) American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Interview with BASE Magazine (April 2005).

Alexander the Great photo

“Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

As quoted in Alexander the Great (1973) by Robin Lane Fox
Unsourced variant : Only sex and sleep make me conscious that I am mortal.

Michelle Phillips photo
George Orwell photo
John Green photo
Arthur Miller photo

“Sex, sin, and the Devil were early linked.”

Source: The Crucible

W.B. Yeats photo
Charlotte Perkins Gilman photo

“There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: Women and Economics (1898), Ch. 8.

Simone de Beauvoir photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“I believe in using words, not fists… I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

No known source; also attributed to Susan Sarandon.[citation needed]
Disputed

Oscar Wilde photo
Susan Sontag photo

“Self-respect. It would make me lovable. And it's the secret to good sex.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

Susan B. Anthony photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Joan Crawford photo

“I need sex for a clear complexion, but I'd rather do it for love.”

Joan Crawford (1904–1977) American actress

Source: My Way of Life

Bill Maher photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“Sex and art are the same thing.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Ogden Nash photo
Steve Martin photo
Woody Allen photo

“Having sex is like bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Douglas Coupland photo
Christine de Pizan photo

“The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues.”

Cellui ou celle en qui plus a vertus est le plus hault, ne la haulteur ou abbaisement des gens ne gist mie es corps selon le sexe mais en la perfeccion des meurs et des vertus.
Part I, ch. 9, p. 24.
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405)
Source: The Book of the City of Ladies

David Lynch photo

“Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
Steven Pinker photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Harlan Ellison photo

“Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Title of book (1968)

Annette Kellerman photo

“I had the endurance but not the brute strength that must be coupled with it. No woman has this combination. That's why I say none of my sex will ever accomplish that particular stunt.”

Annette Kellerman (1886–1975) Australian swimmer, vaudeville star, film actress and writer

Of swimming the English Channel; "Into Fame and Fortune", in The American Magazine, Vol. 83 (1917), p. 34

Richard Ashcroft photo

“It’s just sex and violence, melody and silence.”

Richard Ashcroft (1971) English singer-songwriter

Bitter Sweet Symphony
Urban Hymns (1997)

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Barack Obama photo
Julie Christie photo
Neil Gaiman photo
John Lydon photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“One of the things you want to do with a conception like compassion is that you want to start thinking about it like a psychologist, or like a scientist, because compassion is actually definable. The easiest way to approach it is to think about it in Big-5 terms, because it maps onto Agreeableness, which you can break down into Compassion and Politeness. The liberal types, especially the Social Justice types, are way higher in Compassion. It's actually their fundamental characteristic. You might think, 'well, compassion is a virtue.' Yes, it's a virtue, but any uni-dimensional virtue immediately becomes a vice, because real virtue is the intermingling of a number of virtues and their integration into a functional identity that can be expressed socially. Compassion can be great if you happen to be the entity towards which it is directed. But compassion tends to divide the world into crying children and predatory snakes. So if you're a crying child, hey great. But if you happen to be identified as one of the predatory snakes, you better look the hell out. Compassion is what the mother grizzly bear feels for her cubs while she eats you because you got in the way. We don't want to be thinking for a second that compassion isn't a virtue that can lead to violence, because it certainly can. The other problem with compassion - this is why we have conscientiousness - there's five canonical personality dimensions. Agreeableness is good if you are functioning in a kin system. You want to distribute resources equally for example among your children, because you want all of them to have the same chance, and even roughly the same outcome. That is, a good one. But the problem is that you can't extend that moral network to larger groups. As far as I can tell, you need conscientiousness, which is a much colder virtue. It's also a virtue that is much more concerned with larger structures over the longer period of time. And you can think about conscientiousness as a form of compassion too. It's like: 'straighten the hell out, and work hard and your life will go well. I don't care how you feel about that right now.' Someone who's cold, that is, low in agreeableness and high in conscientiousness, will tell you every time. 'Don't come whining to me. I don't care about your hurt feelings. Do your goddamn job or you're going to be out on the street.' One might think, 'Oh that person is being really hard on me.' Not necessarily. They might have your long term best interest in mind. You're fortunate if you come across someone who is disagreeable. Not tyrannically disagreeable, but moderately disagreeable and high in conscientiousness because they will whip you into shape. And that's really helpful. You'll admire people like that. You won't be able to help it. You'll feel like, 'Oh wow, this person has actually given me good information, even though you will feel like a slug after they have taken you apart.' That's the compassion issue. You can't just transform that into a political stance. I think part of what we're seeing is actually the rise of a form of female totalitarianism, because we have no idea what totalitarianism would be like if women ran it, because that's never happened before in the history of the planet. And so, we've introduced women into the political sphere radically over the past fifty years. We have no idea what the consequence of that is going to be. But we do know from our research, which is preliminary, that agreeableness really predicts political correctness, but female gender predicts over and above the personality trait, and that's something we found very rarely in our research. Usually the sex differences are wiped out by the personality differences, but not in this particular case. On top of that, women are getting married later, and they're having children much later, and they're having fewer of them, and so you also have to wonder what their feminine orientation is doing with itself in the interim, roughly speaking. A lot of it is being expressed as political opinion. Fair enough. That's fine. But it's not fine when it starts to shut down discussion.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Stefan Zweig photo

“He who is himself crossed in love is able from time to time to master his passion, for he is not the creature but the creator of his own misery; and if a lover is unable to control his passion, he at least knows that he is himself to blame for his sufferings. But he who is loved without reciprocating that love is lost beyond redemption, for it is not in his power to set a limit to that other's passion, to keep it within bounds, and the strongest will is reduced to impotence in the face of another's desire. Perhaps only a man can realize to the full the tragedy of such an undesired relationships; for him alone the necessity to resist t is at once martyrdom and guilt. For when a woman resists an unwelcome passion, she is obeying to the full the law of her sex; the initial gesture of refusal is, so to speak, a primordial instinct in every female, and even if she rejects the most ardent passion she cannot be called inhuman. But how disastrous it is when fate upsets the balance, when a woman so far overcomes her natural modesty as to disclose her passion to a man, when, without the certainty of its being reciprocated, she offers her love, and he, the wooed, remains cold and on the defensive! An insoluble tangle this, always; for not to return a woman's love is to shatter her pride, to violate her modesty. The man who rejects a woman's advances is bound to wound her in her noblest feelings. In vain, then, all the tenderness with which he extricates himself, useless all his polite, evasive phrases, insulting all his offers of mere friendship, once she has revealed her weakness! His resistance inevitably becomes cruelty, and in rejecting a woman's love he takes a load of guild upon his conscience, guiltless though he may be. Abominable fetters that can never be cast off! Only a moment ago you felt free, you belonged to yourself and were in debt to no one, and now suddenly you find yourself pursued, hemmed in, prey and object of the unwelcome desires of another. Shaken to the depths of your soul, you know that day and night someone is waiting for you, thinking of you, longing and sighing for you - a woman, a stranger. She wants, she demands, she desires you with every fibre of her being, with her body, with her blood. She wants your hands, your hair, your lips, your manhood, your night and your day, your emotions, your senses, and all your thought and dreams. She wants to share everything with you, to take everything from you, and to draw it in with her breath. Henceforth, day and night, whether you are awake or asleep, there is somewhere in the world a being who is feverish and wakeful and who waits for you, and you are the centre of her waking and her dreaming. It is in vain that you try not to think of her, of her who thinks always of you, in vain that you seek to escape, for you no longer dwell in yourself, but in her. Of a sudden a stranger bears your image within her as though she were a moving mirror - no, not a mirror, for that merely drinks in your image when you offer yourself willingly to it, whereas she, the woman, this stranger who loves you, she has absorbed you into her very blood. She carries you always within her, carries you about with her, no mater whither you may flee. Always you are imprisoned, held prisoner, somewhere else, in some other person, no longer yourself, no longer free and lighthearted and guiltless, but always hunted, always under an obligation, always conscious of this "thinking-of-you" as if it were a steady devouring flame. Full of hate, full of fear, you have to endure this yearning on the part of another, who suffers on your account; and I now know that it is the most senseless, the most inescapable, affliction that can befall a man to be loved against his will - torment of torments, and a burden of guilt where there is no guilt.”

Beware of Pity (1939)

Camille Paglia photo
Ernest Belfort Bax photo
Marquis de Sade photo
Lady Gaga photo

“I wanna be the girl under you (oh yeah)
I wanna be your G. U. Y (yeah)
I wanna be the grave and unearth you (oh yeah)
Our sexes tell us no lies.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

G.U.Y., written by Lady Gaga and Anton Zaslavski
Song lyrics, Artpop (2013)

Karl Marx photo

“Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included).”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_12_12.htm, dated 12 December 1868.

John Wayne photo

“I eat as much as I ever did, I drink more than I should, and my sex life is none of your goddamned business.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

Playboy interview, May 1971

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“When a husbandless woman is attacked by an aggressive man, she takes his action to be mercy. A woman is generally very much attracted by a man’s long arms. A serpent’s body is round, and it becomes narrower and thinner at the end. The beautiful arms of a man appear to a woman just like serpents, and she very much desires to be embraced by such arms. The word anatha-varga is very significant in this verse. Natha means “husband,” and a means “without.” A young woman who has no husband is called anatha, meaning “one who is not protected.” As soon as a woman attains the age of puberty, she immediately becomes very much agitated by sexual desire. It is therefore the duty of the father to get his daughter married before she attains puberty. Otherwise she will be very much mortified by not having a husband. Anyone who satisfies her desire for sex at that age becomes a great object of satisfaction. It is a psychological fact that when a woman at the age of puberty meets a man and the man satisfies her sexually, she will love that man for the rest of her life, regardless who he is. Thus so-called love within this material world is nothing but sexual satisfaction.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 4, Chapter 25, verse 42, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/4/25/42
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Chris Rock photo

“It's hard for a man to turn down sex … if they chase us, we can't run that fast.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Bigger and Blacker (HBO, 1999)

Alfred Kinsey photo
Muhammad bin Qasim photo

“On the receipt of this letter, Hijaj obtained the consent of Wuleed, the son of Abdool Mullik, to invade India, for the purpose of propagating the faith and at the same time deputed a chief of the name of Budmeen, with three hundred cavalry, to join Haroon in Mikran, who was directed to reinforce the party with one thousand good soldiers more to attack Deebul. Budmeen failed in his expedition, and lost his life in the first action. Hijaj, not deterred by this defeat, resolved to follow up the enterprise by another. In consequence, in the year AH 93 (AD 711) he deputed his cousin and son-in-law, Imad-ood-Deen Mahomed Kasim, the son of Akil Shukhfy, then only seventeen years of age, with six thousand soldiers, chiefly Assyrians, with the necessary implements for taking forts, to attack Deebul'… 'On reaching this place, he made preparations to besiege it, but the approach was covered by a fortified temple, surrounded by strong wall, built of hewn stone and mortar, one hundred and twenty feet in height. After some time a bramin, belonging to the temple, being taken, and brought before Kasim, stated, that four thousand Rajpoots defended the place, in which were from two to three thousand bramins, with shorn heads, and that all his efforts would be vain; for the standard of the temple was sacred; and while it remained entire no profane foot dared to step beyond the threshold of the holy edifice. Mahomed Kasim having caused the catapults to be directed against the magic flag-staff, succeeded, on the third discharge, in striking the standard, and broke it down… Mahomed Kasim levelled the temple and its walls with the ground and circumcised the brahmins. The infidels highly resented this treatment, by invectives against him and the true faith. On which Mahomed Kasim caused every brahmin, from the age of seventeen and upwards, to be put to death; the young women and children of both sexes were retained in bondage and the old women being released, were permitted to go whithersoever they chose… On reaching Mooltan, Mahomed Kasim also subdued that province; and himself occupying the city, he erected mosques on the site of the Hindoo temples.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 234-238

Tracey Emin photo

“When I think about sex it makes me realise how alone I feel.”

Tracey Emin (1963) English artist, one of the group known as Britartists or Young British Artists

"Emin reveals naked self portraits" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4584875.stm BBC, (2005-05-27)

Stephen Clarke photo
Alfred Kinsey photo
William Shatner photo

“I'm not a Starfleet commander, or T. J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-170… [some audience members say "1"], or own a phaser. I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock [picture of Dr. Benjamin Spock is shown on screen behind him]. And no, I've never had green alien sex, but I'm sure it'd be quite an evening. [Pomp and Circumstance begins playing. ] I speak English and French, not Klingon! I drink Labatt's, not Romulan Ale! And when someone says to me 'live long and prosper', I seriously mean it when I say, 'get a life'. My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg [nude picture of Dr. Ginsberg shown on screen]. And tribbles were puppets, not real animals. PUPPETS! And when I speak, I never, ever talk like Every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence. I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal. And I believe in Priceline. com, where you never have to pay full price for airline tickets, hotels, and car rentals! I've appeared on stage at Stratford, at Carnegie Hall, Albert Hall, and the Monkland Theatre in NDG. And, yes, I've gone where no man has gone before, but… I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission! My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

From a Just for Laughs appearance in a parody of the popular Molson "I Am Canadian" commercials (21 July 2007) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1648058156561008324&q=i+am+canadian.

Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Ronald Fisher photo
Ronald Fisher photo

“In organisms of all kinds the young are launched upon their careers endowed with a certain amount of biological capital derived from their parents. This varies enormously in amount in different species, but, in all, there has been, before the offspring is able to lead an independent existence, a certain expenditure of nutriment in addition, almost universally, to some expenditure of time or activity, which the parents are induced by their instincts to make for the advantage of their young. Let us consider the reproductive value of these offspring at the moment when this parental expenditure on their behalf has just ceased. If we consider the aggregate of an entire generation of such offspring it is clear that the total reproductive value of the males in this group is exactly equal to the total value of all the females, because each sex must supply half the ancestry of all future generations of the species. From this it follows that the sex ratio will so adjust itself, under the influence of Natural Selection, that the total parental expenditure incurred in respect of children of each sex, shall be equal; for if this were not so and the total expenditure incurred in producing males, for instance, were less than the total expenditure incurred in producing females, then since the total reproductive value of the males is equal to that of the females, it would follow that those parents, the innate tendencies of which caused them to produce males in excess, would, for the same expenditure, produce a greater amount of reproductive value; and in consequence would be the progenitors of a larger fraction of future generations than would parents having a congenital bias towards the production of females. Selection would thus raise the sex-ratio until the expenditure upon males became equal to that upon females.”

On natural selection acting on sex ratio: Fisher's principle, Ch. 6, p. 141.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

John Updike photo

“Sex is like money; only too much is enough.”

Source: Couples (1968), Ch. 5

Gabriel Iglesias photo
Jean Jacques Rousseau photo